Further evidence for the induction of proteolysis by coumarin in rats with various high-protein oedemas.

It has been shown that coumarin can induce lysis of tracer protein injected into animals with normal limbs as well as such with various high-protein oedemas. Although this experiment greatly underestimates protein lysis, burn treated groups showed significant increases in protein fragments of both the body and limb. Although the reverse was the case for the group with lymphoedema and for the group with lymphoedema in combination with burn, the results could be explained by incorporation of the fragments into protein not precipitable with trichloroacetic acid (TCA) in the maturing phagocytes of the lesion. Coumarin alone cannot induce this proteolysis, it needs the tissues and the cells within them.